To Be With You
by melissa Ivory
Summary: After being with Wednesday for years, Joel is finally ready to take any steps possible to stay with her.


_Genre:_ The Addams Family (films)  
_Rating:_ G  
_Summary:_ After being with Wednesday for years, Joel is finally ready to take any steps possible to stay with her.  
_Author's Note:_ Happy Halloween!

**To Be With You**

It was a wonder she liked him, but it was also clear that she did. Constantly trying to scare him, half to death most of the time, yet she would reassure him afterwards that it was her way to show him affection. After ten years, his frazzled nerves were at their end and he was truly afraid he'd die the next time she did something. So Joel went to Granny Addams, hoping she could help.

"Nope, can't help you!" she crooned, stirring away at tonight's soup. He saw a tentacle swimming in it and strangely knew it would be delicious.

Thing, who was always about somehow, tapped his shoe and motioned for him to follow, which he did without question. After all this time hanging around Wednesday and her family, he had learned that there was really nothing wrong with them, that they were more loving and supportive than most families. Because of that, he'd come to love Wednesday more and more, as well as the family at large. Joel was lead into the study on the second floor, Morticia's, where the matriarch was waiting for him.

"Hello young Joel, I hear you're looking for help and my mother is being stubborn." Her hands were templed on the desk before her, and she looked posed yet relaxed.

"Yes. I want to know if there is a way to take care of all my… pesky problems." After spending so much time with the Addams', he'd almost completely grown out of his stumbling way of speaking.

"And is there anything you're not willing to do to take care of them?" The woman sounded interested, as usual.

"Anything, what do you have in mind?" He was desperate and his voice reflected that.

"There is a potion I know of, but it has a high chance of killing you before fixing everything."

"Would I stay dead?" With this family, he knew death was not always permanent.

"No, but you wouldn't be the same afterwards." She smiled, that sweet one that he couldn't wait for Wednesday to have.

"Do it," he nodded.

Morticia took him down to the basement, to a room he didn't know was there, behind a wall and down a corridor that was draped with webs and inhabited by more than the spiders. The matriarch seemed to know every twist and turn, and Joel wasn't about to question her now, he couldn't if he was going to go through with this. They ended up in a room with a cauldron in the centre, shelves full of stoppered bottles and jars, and a table covered by a set of tools and cutting board, above which hung drying herbs from the garden. It was clearly her potion laboratory, but the chair in the corner, with straps on the arms and legs, worried him a bit.

"Sit, please, so I can work better," she instructed and he followed. The chair was comfortable in a strange way, and he could ignore the straps from this vantage point.

Joel watched Morticia as she found the right page in one of her spell books, found all the ingredients and began preparing them. Shiny body parts being chopped into slices, eyes and bones being ground into pulp, and measurements of liquids added to a cauldron. She stirred it with a metal rod, adjusted the fire before adding each thing, and after what felt like minutes but was really hours, she took it off the burner and poured him a cup of the brew.

"Drink all of this and in the morning, you should be over all your issues. You'll be staying the night, just in case."

He looked down at the glowing and steaming cup of reddish green liquid before taking a deep breath and draining it completely. It had a metal tang and a floral aftertaste, but he didn't mind it much. Handing her back the empty cup, he thanked her.

"Don't thank me yet Joel, wait until tomorrow." She smiled that secret smile again and lead him back upstairs. He doubted he'd ever see inside her potion lab again.

Dinner passed normally, and Wednesday showed the regular amount of affection she normally did, because Joel wasn't about to tell her what he'd asked of her mother nor that he was doing it for her more than himself. He knew that one day, the way things were going, she would succeed in killing him, and as much as he understood why she did those things, he also didn't want to leave her until absolutely necessary. She told him once that he was her perfect partner, if only because he always was scared by her antics, but in the end, he knew that she knew he would die if things continued the way they were going, and he wasn't going to let that happen.

He was lead to his usual of the guests rooms near Fester's, feeling fine as lights were turned off and candles blown out. The regular sounds of the Addams house lulled him to sleep, and this time it was heavier than he could remember. Because of this, he wasn't aware of the jerks and shaking his body went through, the moment he stopped breathing, then the lapse of body signs until suddenly everything started again, a gasp as breath was forced back in, and he was sleeping normally again. Only now, there was nothing normal left about him.

Joel didn't feel any different, didn't look any different, didn't really seem any different; and it seemed that no one else noticed a difference either when he walked down for breakfast. Sitting down in his chair next to Wednesday, he didn't jump when he sat on the electric eel, which stung him horribly as he got back up and grabbed it to take back over to the pools they were kept in. Somehow, he didn't see how different that was from his usual, but his girlfriend noticed.

"You didn't jump. You didn't scream. _You didn't faint_!" She yelled the last part, getting up to look him in the eyes better.

"I was supposed to?" He was genuinely confused. Everyone else was watching them with a different expression each—Gomez looked interested, Morticia looked amused, Grandmama looked bothered, Fester looked passive, Pugsley looked annoyed, and Lurch looked the same as always.

"What happened to you? You're not the Joel I know."

"I… don't know what to tell you Wednesday, I haven't… wait, I have done something, but I don't feel any different."

"What did you do?" Her voice belayed her anger, but her face showed panic.

"I asked your mother for help to get over my issues. I didn't want to die on you because I'm so pathetic." He hung his head in shame, sure that he'd lose her now for sure.

"What did you give him?" She turned onto her mother, plaits whipping around with her.

"A simple potion to ease his ailments." Morticia was not fazed by her daughter's reaction.

"I thought you said something like that would kill him!" Wednesday seemed upset now, in her own way.

"I did, and I told him the same warning, but only he could ask for the potion for it to work properly." The mother was patient and calm, and deflated her daughter's anger quickly. The young woman flopped back into her seat, looking lost.

"I'm still here though, I'm alive. Isn't that good?" Joel sat down as well, afraid to touch his girlfriend. A few moments passed and no one spoke. Eventually, Wednesday reacted, reaching over and taking his hand.

"Yes, I'm glad you're still alive." This close, he could see that she was fighting tears. It was the second time he'd seen her like this and she's made him swear to not say anything to anyone about the first time.

"So am I. Hey, let's leave everyone to eat, okay?" She nodded and they left the table, letting the rest of the family eat in peace.

The young couple went into the parlour and sat on the love seat, their normal seat when together. Neither spoke for some time, and they even were a few inches apart at first. Wednesday seemed impassive and non-responsive, but Joel could tell she was upset and nervous. He didn't blame her, and expected more anger really, for all his troubles. Almost killing himself was as distressing to him as it was to her, but again, he felt she was worth the risk.

"You could have told me you wanted to do it," she finally spoke.

"And have you talk me out of it, no way." He was very firm, a rarity when talking to her.

"You risked your life…" She couldn't finish the thought.

"For you, I'd do it again." He couldn't have been more sure of anything than that, right then.

"I don't understand… why?" Wednesday looked at Joel like he had more heads or eyes than expected on him, twenty eyes between three heads perhaps.

"Because I love you." It was a simple statement, said without hesitation or negative intonation.

The eldest Addams blinked quickly in surprise and then, uncharacteristically, smiled happily and broadly. It wasn't creepy, like the last time he'd seen her face brighten like this, and it didn't seem to have any ulterior motive. This seemed like a genuine response, and he was so distracted with consoling himself of that that he was surprised when her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed him. The amount of time she'd kissed him could be counted on one hand, but it was different this time, it felt different.

"You're an Addams now, you realise that?" She asked, breaking the kiss.

"As long as I get to be with you to the grave and beyond, I can live with that. Do you think we should tell my parents or surprise them afterwards?"

Wednesday gave that mischievous grin. "Whichever will upset them best."

Joel grinned back. "First stop on the honeymoon then." He knew his parents would have a coronary at the news, possibly worse.

_Six months later…_

The doorbell to the Addams residence rang through the house. A squeak of glee came from one parlour as Fester rushed to the door before Lurch got there. "They're here, they're back!" he kept saying, biting his tongue as he opened the large oak door and revealed Wednesday and Joel Addams, happily wed and returned from their honeymoon. "You're back!" He hugged his niece, and she responded in kind. The uncle hugged his new nephew-in-law, and squeezed him a bit more than need be.

"We're glad to be back Uncle Fester," the newlywed wife smiled, happy to be back in her family home.

"You're going to live here with us, aren't you?" Fester seemed impatient to know.

"Yes Uncle Fester, we're going to live here, for the time being," the newlywed husband answered, glad to finally feel at home, as an Addams.


End file.
